Diagonal Development and Maintenance Method (D2-M2): Big Ideas
Maintenance, Manufacturing, and Research
Some One Must Do the Work
There is no alternative; work takes human effort and time. Working efficiently is smart, but working consistently and regularly might be smarter. Too often managers seem to think that choosing a method will somehow cause the work to get done. Some methods do require more work than others, especially in the work documents, eg the paperwork.
Under D2-M2, there is more recommended work than in many other methods. The manager must know how the software should function or the manager must have a team mate who knows the details, The manager needs to evaluate the potential project from stem to stern. The manager must evaluate possible sequences and techniques of implementation. As with all methodologies, some elements have inherent impediments to scheduling precisely. For example, external agents present challenges. How long does a government agency take to approve a permit? How long does a vendor need to assemble the required furniture. Are printed forms required?
Separate Development & Research from Maintenance & Manufacturing.
During the initial scan thru a project, the manager decided to move the project into Development & Research or into Maintenance & Manufacturing. Any project that has unknown or unimplemented features must go into the D&R category.
Maintenance
On home-built systems and on purchased systems, maintenance usually becomes the largest consumer of effort and time. Consequently, the cost per year often exceeds all other items. (If maintenance is not the largest cost of a mature system, something is very wrong or very unusual.) Maintenance seems to lack the brilliance and glitz of development. Development has the charm of being the new things. Development usually lacks the overhead of legacy constraints. Development gets the advertising and the prominence. Designing for maintenance is very important.
Manufacturing
Under the Diagonal Method, creativity seems to take a back seat. The praise belongs to the skill of the manager and the architect to build great systems from standard components. The praise belongs to the predictable completion in a timely matter.
Research
The wise manager judiciously identifies and initiates two kinds of important research tasks. Occasional research into new features is very understandable kind of research. New devices appear every few years. New software appears frequently. The wise manager must identify and choose carefully. More possible beneficial topics than any one can pursue. The manager allocates chunks of time for research into new features. Such research tasks end on time by definition. Part of the result is a recommendation on whether to continue, and if so, how to continue.
The other kind of research into specifications occurs regularly and frequently. From experience, good research into specifications takes about ten percent of the overall time of the department. When the queue of manufacturing tasks is empty, such research is mandatory. This kind of research generates specifications for manufacturing tasks. Typically, the specifications rely on the paradigms for many of the details. For example,
"The resident report RD4IDYR should follow the Report Type 2 paradigm. The resident info is the main level; the history of rooms and dorms is the second level; the names of roommates is the third level. The selection is restricted to one resident ID, or a list of ID's, or a range of ID's. Standard Report Tye 2 sorting and outputs. (See report SR4ENRL as the primary example.)"
By referring to the paradigm and its primary example, the specification is concise and yet very complete. The programmer can copy all of the features of the primary example. The shop can follow similar paradigms for menu access and security,
The manager should expect to have more requests than the shop can fill in the near future.
Topics
Voice Compression for faster listening
Voice tagging to allow jumping back to specific places
Voice analysis to translate
Voice identification and voice comparison to detect emotions
Voice driven computers and creating lectures from writing
Computers that make things move
Handwriting to text and text to commands
Facial recognition
Body movement recognition
Architectural Design
Architectural Decomposition
Conveyor Belt Control
Robotics
Drones
Map reading and route optimization
Mapping of human brain actions
Muscle training of athlete
Muscle training of injured persons
Scheduling of projects
Scheduling of events
Reading of letters, job applications, and proposals
Re-editing of documents
Searching for information
Human match-making like eHarmony or eRoom-mates
At one large corporation, a large crew of about forty technicians labored regularly to build and maintain four hundred PCs. After several years, the manager of the technicians decided that using browsers was a better way to go. Now he has more technicians because there are more layers to maintain. In contrast, a team of five technicians at another large corporation maintained over seven hundred PCs. The techs wrote a program to install all the software for several kinds of work stations. In essence, the program copied the selected parts of the set-up of an existing machine to a second machine. The expertise of a few greatly outperformed the labor of the many.
Some One Must Do the Work
There is no alternative; work takes human effort and time. Working efficiently is smart, but working consistently and regularly might be smarter. Too often managers seem to think that choosing a method will somehow cause the work to get done. Some methods do require more work than others, especially in the work documents, eg the paperwork.
Under D2-M2, there is more recommended work than in many other methods. The manager must know how the software should function or the manager must have a team mate who knows the details, The manager needs to evaluate the potential project from stem to stern. The manager must evaluate possible sequences and techniques of implementation. As with all methodologies, some elements have inherent impediments to scheduling precisely. For example, external agents present challenges. How long does a government agency take to approve a permit? How long does a vendor need to assemble the required furniture. Are printed forms required?
Separate Development & Research from Maintenance & Manufacturing.
During the initial scan thru a project, the manager decided to move the project into Development & Research or into Maintenance & Manufacturing. Any project that has unknown or unimplemented features must go into the D&R category.
Maintenance
On home-built systems and on purchased systems, maintenance usually becomes the largest consumer of effort and time. Consequently, the cost per year often exceeds all other items. (If maintenance is not the largest cost of a mature system, something is very wrong or very unusual.) Maintenance seems to lack the brilliance and glitz of development. Development has the charm of being the new things. Development usually lacks the overhead of legacy constraints. Development gets the advertising and the prominence. Designing for maintenance is very important.
Manufacturing
Under the Diagonal Method, creativity seems to take a back seat. The praise belongs to the skill of the manager and the architect to build great systems from standard components. The praise belongs to the predictable completion in a timely matter.
Research
The wise manager judiciously identifies and initiates two kinds of important research tasks. Occasional research into new features is very understandable kind of research. New devices appear every few years. New software appears frequently. The wise manager must identify and choose carefully. More possible beneficial topics than any one can pursue. The manager allocates chunks of time for research into new features. Such research tasks end on time by definition. Part of the result is a recommendation on whether to continue, and if so, how to continue.
The other kind of research into specifications occurs regularly and frequently. From experience, good research into specifications takes about ten percent of the overall time of the department. When the queue of manufacturing tasks is empty, such research is mandatory. This kind of research generates specifications for manufacturing tasks. Typically, the specifications rely on the paradigms for many of the details. For example,
"The resident report RD4IDYR should follow the Report Type 2 paradigm. The resident info is the main level; the history of rooms and dorms is the second level; the names of roommates is the third level. The selection is restricted to one resident ID, or a list of ID's, or a range of ID's. Standard Report Tye 2 sorting and outputs. (See report SR4ENRL as the primary example.)"
By referring to the paradigm and its primary example, the specification is concise and yet very complete. The programmer can copy all of the features of the primary example. The shop can follow similar paradigms for menu access and security,
- Paging and headers and footers.
- Sorting and totaling.
- User inputs.
- Messages.
- Outputs.
- Distribution.
The manager should expect to have more requests than the shop can fill in the near future.
Topics
Voice Compression for faster listening
Voice tagging to allow jumping back to specific places
Voice analysis to translate
Voice identification and voice comparison to detect emotions
Voice driven computers and creating lectures from writing
Computers that make things move
Handwriting to text and text to commands
Facial recognition
Body movement recognition
Architectural Design
Architectural Decomposition
Conveyor Belt Control
Robotics
Drones
Map reading and route optimization
Mapping of human brain actions
Muscle training of athlete
Muscle training of injured persons
Scheduling of projects
Scheduling of events
Reading of letters, job applications, and proposals
Re-editing of documents
Searching for information
Human match-making like eHarmony or eRoom-mates
At one large corporation, a large crew of about forty technicians labored regularly to build and maintain four hundred PCs. After several years, the manager of the technicians decided that using browsers was a better way to go. Now he has more technicians because there are more layers to maintain. In contrast, a team of five technicians at another large corporation maintained over seven hundred PCs. The techs wrote a program to install all the software for several kinds of work stations. In essence, the program copied the selected parts of the set-up of an existing machine to a second machine. The expertise of a few greatly outperformed the labor of the many.